I upgraded to 64 bit OS recently, and that fixed all the stability issues I had! So now I'm playing again.

I finished all the content from issues #4 and #5 that I hadn't done, and while I'm waiting for issue #6 I'm running the nightmare missions in Transylvania (and a couple in Egypt and one in Blue Mountain). I still haven't tried even Elite dungeons (or any normal dungeons after Polaris). It's a bit weird, seeing how I love running 5-mans in WoW and the TSW dungeons are reportedly so awesome. Just don't feel like posting "dungeon noob in green QL10 gear LFG Elites" in Agartha I guess... But I still got stuff to do. Nightmare missions (IE not Nightmare dungeons, but the outdoor missions with Nightmare mobs) are an excellent challenge. It's very fun to tweak my build or find an entirely new one which allows me to do missions which stomped all over me the first time I tried them!

Currently I've done all but The Girl Who Kicked the Vampire's Nest. That damn mechanic is impossible to solo with what I'm running for now.

My builds are all based on one of two Passive Elites, Forged in Fire (Hammer) or Empowerment (Fists). FiF has a somewhat limited effect, but requires nothing special in stats or +heal. Empowerment has the potential to keep you alive against almost anything, but it requires a very high crit rating, lots of +heal and several passives that places hots on you. Currently I'm running almost exclusivly crit rating as well as Mad Skills (Major Crit rating effect, ie +150 crit rating). My gear is a 50/50 mix of +heal and +attack (it's green, so I get by on the innate HP). Advantage Me (hot when you crit) is always good when I'm so focused on crit, and I generally add one more - Healing Sparks for my Safety Off (AR build), Circulation for my Frenzy/Affliction build and my new Shotgun Strike build (for the Eye of Horus), and sometimes also Lick Your Wounds if I want a third hot. Fever Pitch is nice for extra dps as it removes a lot of glancing hits (plenty of ways to apply Weaken).

The first ones I soloed, I did a couple of months ago. Crossroads (Shadowy Forest demons) was the first one I did, which I did with my Hinder-focused build. I don't think I actually managed to solo all of it, I think I ran into a few others that did it that helped by clearing mobs around me. Finally did it properly all by myself just today - used my AR/Pistol Frenzy build. Ranged consumers are awesome at aoe, activate both then tab to another target that's also full at resources!

The Werewolf mission at the mill in Farmlands was the second one I did. I saved up for all the impairs I could find in Hammer and Chaos, and it went from absolutely nuts to a cakewalk. Tried it with the Safety Off build (with Empowerment/Healing Sparks/Advantage Me) recently and died like a chump.

Before my break I put together a Chaos/Fists burst build specifically for the Last Legion, which I then used almost exclusivly for everything (Healing Sparks and Lick Your Wounds going, Fist consumer and CD for healing, Chaos for damage). Lots of passives spent on damage on hit, almost exclusively +hit glyphs. Used Forged in Fire as I didn't have Empowerment at the time.

Last Dance of the Paduurii was cakewalk with Hinders, and for the Wild Hunt I adapted my impair build and got through ok (removed the impairs, added DR abilities like + block and minor evade chance). Used extra HP and Forged in Fire. Managed to do that now with the Safety Off build, but the tier with the big bug packs gave me fits. They should be pushovers now that I can use the Frenzy build on them.

Ripples (Scarecrows in Farmlands) fit perfectly with Empowerment. Giving me a debuff that is removed when I heal? What debuff! The heralds wiped the floor with me until I noticed all the Weakened stacks he put out. I swapped out the shotgun I used alongside the AR with pistols, and Collaboration (pistol builder, 5s cooldown, cleanse one debuff) saw me through. As an added bonus I was reminded that pistols have that awesome +40% crit chance cooldown - so very, very nice with Empowerment! So now it's Pistols all the way.

Knight of the Draculesti, the Draculesti, a History of Violins, Too Deep, Contagion and the Filth Amendment all went down to the Safety Off build. Foul Banquet went down when I unlocked Circulation and could make the Frenzy build. That should also work on the Last Legion and the Girl Is Gone. Now I'm off to see how my Strike build handles the Eye of Horus!

Soo, my wife's done with WoW for now, and tried to find an "investigative" game (think Cluedo) when TSW popped in her searches.Being avid World of Darkness fans, the concept caught her pretty fast and I watched her play a bit when I bit the bullet and bought my own copy.

Damn that game is SMART. We aren't far on our Sword/Fist - Shotgun/AR duo, just starting the Kingsmouth Code, but she's gone a bit further on her solo toon, and the entire concept of outside-the-game enigmas is fascinating. I giggled when she was stuck looking for something to interact with for the morse code thingie, when I half-jokingly stated "Well, it's morse! Translate it!". Same when she needed a guy's password, being his wife's name. She showed me the guy's ID card and, being more savvy to the game's concepts, I wondered whether the URL was real.

Really fun game overall.

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

While I really enjoy the game (I get that World of Darkness vibe too, and I love it) there is a big turnoff for me and that is all of the main story missions are solo. I bought the game for a friend back when it was on sale cause I wanted some company and as soon as he got caught up to me in the storyline, we grouped up and found out that woops, solo instance. It was just a big letdown cause we wanted to experience the story together and after that realization, we haven't touched it since. Shame, really. If that changes for later missions, I'd love to know cause that may give me a bit more incentive to push for us to play it again.

That being said, I'm getting closer to reinstalling it (got a new PC) and will probably just try to enjoy what I can running solo.

We're FINALLY done with the main story in Romania, and my wife was getting hped up with Tokyo finally coming, and thinking about buying the issues and gear up while having a bit of fun until we can get issue 9.

UNTIL I read that the only way to enter Tokyo is either via the cash shop extra missions (ON TOP of buying issue 9), or to farm those Scenario for their emblems or wathever. Considering a fresh-out-of-Romania toon is at best capable of having a handful of survivors, and thus 3-ish marks, adding that you have ONE freaking scenario without heading to (surprise) the cash shop, coumpound that you can gear by either:

a) PvP (lulz)b) Dungeons (I got burned out of instances in WoW and you want me to start farming here? lulz)c) Using the aformentioned marks (thus aggravating the marks problem)

So instead of a full-on weekend of fun, we basically stopped until we're sure if we're gonna invest more in this game, because we're seriously done with boring-ass grinds.

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

Sagara wrote:UNTIL I read that the only way to enter Tokyo is either via the cash shop extra missions (ON TOP of buying issue 9), or to farm those Scenario for their emblems or wathever. Considering a fresh-out-of-Romania toon is at best capable of having a handful of survivors, and thus 3-ish marks, adding that you have ONE freaking scenario without heading to (surprise) the cash shop, coumpound that you can gear by either:

Where did you find info on this? I haven't been following TSW actively for a while (done all missions, including the DLC), and I'm basically just content waiting for new content (heh).

Given that what you find is what's going to happen, I'm personally going to go for the cash shop road. I don't mind paying for content, I've bought three mission packs so far (one with free points) and there's also issue #5. They were worth the money. If I have to buy missions to get into Tokyo, I will.

Have you played through issues #5-#7 yet? #5 (Tyler Freeborn) is free, so you should at least give that a try. And if you like Investigation Missions, Sidestories was cool.

Sagara wrote:UNTIL I read that the only way to enter Tokyo is either via the cash shop extra missions (ON TOP of buying issue 9), or to farm those Scenario for their emblems or wathever. Considering a fresh-out-of-Romania toon is at best capable of having a handful of survivors, and thus 3-ish marks, adding that you have ONE freaking scenario without heading to (surprise) the cash shop, coumpound that you can gear by either:

Where did you find info on this? I haven't been following TSW actively for a while (done all missions, including the DLC), and I'm basically just content waiting for new content (heh).

Given that what you find is what's going to happen, I'm personally going to go for the cash shop road. I don't mind paying for content, I've bought three mission packs so far (one with free points) and there's also issue #5. They were worth the money. If I have to buy missions to get into Tokyo, I will.

Have you played through issues #5-#7 yet? #5 (Tyler Freeborn) is free, so you should at least give that a try. And if you like Investigation Missions, Sidestories was cool.

To go more into detail, you can either suck Scenarios until your soul bleeds Filth, or you can buy the parallel stories pack (the latest, non-issue linked one) and then you'll have access to a "Counterfeit" permit for 1mil Pax.

Also, that's odd, I just checked the in-game shop, issue 5 is still paying, 750 credit (still less than the other 1200 credits, though).

I guess I'm mostly pissed that once again, if I even want to see what's left of the content, it's going to be either grind to death, or find a cabal, bond myself to yet another schedule, something I threw out the window 6 months ago to be available to my kid. I can't wait for Bioware to finish with DA3 right now. At least I don't *need* people around to enjoy their game.

If I wanted a fun group romp, I'd have stayed playing Mage around dice and pencil, thank you very much.

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

Sagara wrote:To go more into detail, you can either suck Scenarios until your soul bleeds Filth, or you can buy the parallel stories pack (the latest, non-issue linked one) and then you'll have access to a "Counterfeit" permit for 1mil Pax.

Hmm, so you need that counterfeit thingy to access Tokyo? I'm lucky, in that I spent a lot of time soloing the signet missions (mostly to see if I could), and the signets have earned me a few million pax.

I'm still going to hold off on judging funcom until I see what they actually require to get into Tokyo.

Also, that's odd, I just checked the in-game shop, issue 5 is still paying, 750 credit (still less than the other 1200 credits, though).

Hmm, then I guess it's only free for me since I was a subscriber up until they went B2P. Now that you mention it, I think maybe Freeborn was one of the rewards for staying subscribed until the switch.

I guess I'm mostly pissed that once again, if I even want to see what's left of the content, it's going to be either grind to death, or find a cabal, bond myself to yet another schedule, something I threw out the window 6 months ago to be available to my kid. I can't wait for Bioware to finish with DA3 right now. At least I don't *need* people around to enjoy their game.

If I wanted a fun group romp, I'd have stayed playing Mage around dice and pencil, thank you very much.

I've had a lot of fun with tSW as a solo game, and I'm not going to stop now.

I can feel your pain, though. If you don't think mission packs are worth the money, it gets expensive to get into Tokyo.

(If you do buy the pack for the missions, my best tips for quickly getting pax is doing signet missions and selling the signets on the AH.)

Finally got around to Tokyo! I've been playing TSW again for a few weeks, but I've been levelling a new char with friends (we're aiming for running all the dungeons). Today they're all boring and not online so I started Tokyo.

First, there is a way to get in without grinding, assuming that you have 1M pax (or can get it without grinding). I spent a while running signet missions just to see if I could, so I had ~4M pax lying around (the right green signet can sell for a lot). Not to mention that the mission chain issues (#5-7) also reward signets. Anyways, getting in to Tokyo requires issue 8 any way you look at it (for Venice), but if you want to skip the scenario grind you also need Sidestories (which is worth it on it's own IMHO). That unlocks a vendor in the Sunken Library (Venice) that sells Forged Council's Seal for 1M pax. This lets you proceed with the story mission from issue #8 and gets you into Tokyo.

I'm still ambivalent on the Aegis system. Currently it's more annoying than challenging, but we'll see how it works out. Tokyo is very doable in greenish gear (I have two 10.1 epics and a blue weapon, rest is greens), and I get to use hinders again! (Took them out of my deck for signet/nightmare missions, everything was immune). The story so far is interesting.

There is one key mission, Tower Defense, that you want to run 3 times asap (taking a week since it has a 3 day cooldown). I ran it at the same time as another dude, so I don't know how hard it is. There were lots and lots of mobs, bring aoe, but you also need single target (and you won't get time to switch decks). Could be annoying. The reason you want to run it three times is so that you get an extra set of Aegis controllers. I really want one of each for each weapon...